Exploring Virtual Worlds with Head-Mounted Displays

摘要

For nearly a decade the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill has been conducting research in the use of simple head-mounted displays in real-world applications. Such units provide the user with non-holographic true three-dimensional information, since the kinetic depth effect, stereoscopy, and other visual cues combine to immerse the user in a virtual world which behaves like the real world in some respects. UNC's head-mounted display was built inexpensively from commercially available off-the-shelf components. Tracking of the user's head position and orientation is performed by a Polhemus Navigation Sciences' 3SPACE tracker. The host computer uses the tracking information to generate updated images corresponding to the user's new left eye and right eye views. The images are broadcast to two liquid crystal television screens (220x320 pixels) mounted on a horizontal shelf at the user's forehead. The user views these color screens through half-silvered mirrors, enabling the computer-generated image to be superimposed upon the user's real physical environment. The head-mounted display has been incorporated into existing molecular and architectural applications being developed at UNC. In molecular structure studies, chemists are presented with a room-sized molecule with which they can interact in a manner more intuitive than that provided by conventional two-dimensional displays and dial boxes. Walking around and through the large molecule may provide quicker understanding of its structure, and such problems as drug-enzyme docking may be approached with greater insight. (kr)